How To Save a Life
by Dwlittle
Summary: TV Show: The Real-Life LLC (Chrisecca) AU, OTP, Song-fic Story based on The Fray's "How To Save a Life"; Christopher's vice's create problems between him and Jessica; Jessica begins wondering if she could save his life?
1. Chapter 1

_Step 1:_ Set my bag down in my room, then prepare to do homework. Just as I reach my desk, though I hear a knock at my door. I get up and go to the door and open it and see Jessica.

_You say we need to talk. _That doesn't sound good. I let her in and she sits down on my bed.

_I walk _ towards her. Man, I really need to clean my room; the normally immaculate surfaces I slave over are in disarray because of my increased workload, coupled with my organizational duties. But still, amongst the clutter, you, Jessica, sit there, radiant as ever.

_You say sit down, it's just a talk. _

I shrug and sit down beside her. There is a silence. _I smile politely at her_.

_You stare politely right on through_.

I have to look away; the way your eyes are glaring past me let me know that you know what happened. _Some sort of window to your right_…amazing how thankful you become for a window when you girlfriend is about to confront you about your drugs and your cheating.

Jessica takes a deep breath in and says it: "I know what you've been doing and I don't like it"

It was like something tangible between us, breaking: as if my heart _was going left and yours was staying right._

Just one sentence and suddenly all the months of tension built _between the lines of fear and blame_ breaks open like a dam.

I bet she even _wonders why she came._

"_Where did I go wrong_? she asks. "No-where did you go wrong. I thought I was your girlfriend, the one you cared about, so it was my fault, but it's not, because you don't care about me. I feel like…like _I've lost a friend_. First the other women, then the heroin, it's just so wrong. _Somewhere along_ the way, _in the bitterness_, I quit wanting to care, to love you. I would have held your hand _and I would have stayed up with you all night_ through an intervention, Christopher. "

If she had and if _I had known_, it could have _saved my life_.


	2. Chapter 2

I sat on his bed, trying to tell him. I had to _let him know that I knew best_ here; I'm not the one on drugs and cheating, so, _after all, I do know best_.

He starts yelling. I try to calm him down, _try to slip past his defense_, keep him from putting up his wall like he always does when he's angry.

We've been dating for three months now and I know him so well or at least I thought I did. Even though he's yelling, I still find him amazing in every way: the words he uses to insult me are more than two syllables, which is better than any other boyfriend I've had; he straightens his tie, looking like he's trying to be a model in an ad, but the anger in his eyes is fierce enough to light a candle. I'm not _granting him innocence_ here; instead, I'm recognizing his faults and his beauty. He's art.

I know I'm doing the wrong thing but I pull out The List I had made. _I lay down the list of what is wrong _on the bed where he had been sitting. _These things, I've told him all along_ but that he never understands: to not be so elitist, no matter how deserved; to not act sexy when girls other than me are around; that dressing better than other people does not excuse you of your faults; that even being perfect means having some faults. 

Every night, I hope he will follow them, but he doesn't. Now that this has happened, I do more than hope; I pray. _I pray to God he hears me_.

Oh, _and I pray to God he hears me_.

I think I know exactly where I went wrong: I lost him as a friend and gained him as a lover. Now I have neither. Somewhere along in the bitterness, what we were changed. This bitterness was so slow I didn't even see it until now. It's clear though, now, with all this yelling from him and what I am feeling inside, this feeling of breaking and dying inside.

I would have stayed up with you all night arguing like this if I had realized it would end like it did. _Had I known how_ it could have _saved your life_. 


	3. Chapter 3

Christopher was yelling. _As he began to raise his voice_, Jessica tried to calm him down; when that failed, she fell silent. Still he raged, his voice loud. Then _she lowered hers_ again, speaking again.

"I'm _granting you one last choice_, Christopher: me or what you have been doing behind my back. Me or the drugs and the women. Your choice."

Christopher stopped raging and looked at her. "I'm sorry for my anger and yelling. I don't chose them…but I don't choose you either. I know I've been wrong, but you have been spying on me-not to mention what you've been doing; or should I say who?"

Jessica looked shocked. "How did you-"

"Doesn't matter, I did"

There was silence between the two of them.

"Ok then". Jessica stood and left the room. Christopher remained where he had been. He removed his glasses and placed them on his desk. He walked to his bed, lay down, and began to cry silently until he fell asleep.

Jessica crossed the hallway to her room and closed the door behind her. It was on the floor behind it that she collapsed in a fit of tears. Gaining strength, she turned out the lights and went to her bed, finally sleeping after more tears.

* * *

He was driving down a back road and it was wet and dark. So full of twists and turns but no warnings, only sudden jerks where there was no more road. So he drove like a madman following ever twist and turn. _He drove until he lost the road_. It disappeared; at first, it was a highway of darkness; then, it was a fall, a cliff off of which he was flying at too-fast. The pitch forward was both surprising and unexpected, but the pull of gravity was like a douse of cold water while sleeping under the stars on a fall evening.

She was a bird in a flock, flying in a great cloud over a great expanse of water going on forever. Not in the front or the back, in the middle. Then, _she broke with the ones she had followed_. No reason, just a swerve out of the cloud and into the blue of sky and sea and be and individual. So she did and so she was alone. And the cloud continued on leaving her a black spot on the blues.

* * *

When Jessica woke up, she realized that _he will do one of two things_: _he will admit to everything_ to himself and stop _or he'll say he's just not the same_ and continue and be a different person.

Jessica knew what he would do; _she began to wonder why she came_ to his room anyway. "_Where did I go wrong?_" she wondered, "what did I do, what did he do, where did we go wrong? He was my friend and lover, now _I lost a friend_ and lover and he will be nothing; _somewhere along_, we created a thing, a piece of dark _in the bitterness _that comes from a relationship that's sinking. Just like the Titanic."


	4. Chapter 4

Two weeks later, Jessica was at the hospital, sitting next to Christopher's bed. _She had stayed up with him all night._ He wasn't expected to make it through the night; she thought she wouldn't make it through the morning. The irony of it was that despite all the friends and women and people he was with now, it was only her that was here now, her alone. It wasn't the drugs, either, that did this; it was a simple car accident-his brand-new car from his family, just like that, brakes stopped working on a twisted road outside the city.

Jessica didn't know how she could have stopped him; _had she know, _she still didn't think she could have known how to save his life.


End file.
